Congress of Idling Persons
2021. 36 min., 4K UHD video. English/Arabic with bilingual subtitles.
The film features five interlocutors who play themselves and greater fictions, in the shadows of recent world-historical events. Artist and writer Bassem Saad, DJ and translator Rayyan Abdel Khalek, musical artist Sandy Chamoun, writer Islam Khatib, and organiser Mekdes Yilma examine a cartography of protest, crisis, humanitarian and mutual aid, migrant labour, and Palestinian outsider status. Punctuated by the late Arab Spring, the Black Lives Matter revolts of 2020, and the Beirut port explosion, the film weaves through transhistorical constants — from rage and mourning to spontaneity and besiegement — propelled by the speech and acts of its performers. If a group action is a riot and not a revolution, then who films it? If four is a riot, it is also a congress.
Special Mention in New:Vision Award at CPH:DOX 2022
March 2022
Premiere at MoMA Doc Fortnight 2022
March 2022
Shortlisted for Sunset Kino Awards 2021 at Salzburger Kunstverein
Drafts screened at Transmediale 2021, Queer Cinema for Palestine at Sursock Museum, and elsewhere
Commissioned by Transmediale 2021, additional funding by Open City Documentary Film Festival 2020
Directed by Bassem Saad
Featuring and co-written with: Rayyan Abdel Khalek, Sandy Chamoun, Islam Khatib, Mekdes Yilma
Additional actors: Tsigereda Brihanu, Medhanit Teshome
Subtitles: Safa Hamzeh
Sound recordist: Lara Nassar
Sound designer: Anthony Sahyoun
Lighting: Eyad El Cheikh
Featured song: Dreams of the Imagination by Sandy Chamoun
Funded by: Transmediale x Martin Roth Initiative, Open City Documentary Film Festival
Thank you to: Ashkal Alwan, Egna Legna Besidet, Metro al-Madina, Lara Bitar, Hera Chan, Bassel Hasan, Yumna Marwan, Edwin Nasr, Joshua Wizman